We are pleased to welcome back Portland artist, Heather Cavalieri, for her second show here at Ampersand. Working with a variety of found paper materials that she applies directly to her work or incorporates into the handmade paper she makes, Cavalieri's practice is centered on finding & creating beauty in common materials she collects day to day. As with her past show, the work in this exhibition is precise, subtly expansive & serene. There is the touch of a poet in the creative decisions she makes, a quality that resonates in the titles of each individual piece. "My material use," notes Cavalieri, "echoes my process of finding a shape or image with which to work. I draw what I notice in my daily life, out on a walk, outside my window. It might be a triangular shape from a pine cone or the sloping line of a rooftop. I cut out these basic shapes & manipulate them, using either repetition or isolation to draw attention to the beauty I see. I love the way that the blank space of the paper & a limited color palette can focus one's attention." This sensibility for attention extends to what is not seen in the work: a message that may have been conveyed in the envelopes she utilizes, or the words from her old journal pages that disappeared in the pulp of her paper making, resulting, she notes, in a beautiful, not pure shade of white.